Harvard Ventures Interviews Top Cybersecurity VC: Ping Li

On May 6, 2021, the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S. experienced a ransomware attack by a Russian hacking group, resulting in one of the largest cybersecurity breaches of 2021 in the United States. With new technology comes new demands; according to Yahoo Finance, the global cyber security market is predicted to exceed $398 billion by 2026. Needless to say, the venture capital industry’s stakes to address national security threats are high.

Students from Harvard Ventures, the largest undergraduate VC and entrepreneurial group at Harvard College, had the chance to address these pressing global challenges with top Accel cybersecurity and software investor, Ping Li. As a Harvard College and Stanford Graduate School of Business alum, Li had numerous insights to offer on the future of the cybersecurity space, in addition to advice on what it takes to be a strategic investor and how he actively supports entrepreneurs.

Looking back at his time at Harvard, Li suggested that the liberal arts education shaped his perspective on investing today. Understanding of a wide range of disciplines has helped hone his ability to evaluate new technologies, trends, products, and markets. His path to becoming a venture capitalist stems from his love to help entrepreneurs take a company from an early idea to a scaled and executed vision. Li said, “I don’t think you should ever do venture if you don’t enjoy the company building part, because after you make the investment, you’re in it for years.”

Li has been investing since 2004 and suggests that “no two days have been the same.” Recently, he has been working in Accel’s London office. Li suggests that historically, many companies outsource their R&D to Eastern Europe and though there is still more capital allocated in the United States, but today Europe has cutting-edge access to some of the highest quality entrepreneurs he has seen.

As a VC, Li explained that most early stage venture investors will generally close on a maximum of two to three deals per year. He described how a significant part of his job includes helping founders to recruit to build out their teams. He has certainly excelled in this arena — a few of his largest investments include Arista, Cloudera,and Tenable, which combined equals to more than $35 billion of market capitalization on NASDAQ. From Li’s perspective,“it really is about identifying the unique precision and nuance that the entrepreneur brings, and this is something that we really try to cultivate at Accel.”

“I’m confident about the US capability in cyber. If you look throughout our security portfolio, a lot of the great architects and great cyber engineers all spent time at government agencies that are focused on cyber,” Li said. In terms of scope, the cyber investments that he makes are not limited to government contracts. He explained how, “most of the companies that we invest in are not necessarily geared towards the government only. They typically are more horizontal and attack a lot of different verticals and several on different industries, and government being just one of them.”

For advice to anyone wanting to create a venture, Li recommends speaking to as many entrepreneurs as possible before making a major commitment.“I think anyone who wants to start a company should talk to as many other founders as they can. I think you really have to understand the kind of journey this entails. You need to be passionate about the idea, and you need to spend time really thinking and iterating on the idea until you know it is something that you absolutely have to pursue.” The path to starting a company is not like going to medical or law school; no route is necessarily right or wrong, but taking insights from other successful founders is key to understanding the level of adaptability and grit it takes to be an outstanding founder.

If Li were able to go back to his college days at Harvard, he says that he would meet up with classmates from other classes that were in different academic and social circles. He expressed how as time has passed since his graduation from the college, he has seen many of his classmates making a notable impact on the world through various leadership roles across a diverse range of sectors. It is evident that Li is a Harvard graduate who exemplifies this level of impact himself — from his cyber security investments and beyond.

Ping Li is a Partner at Accel and the lead investor and board member at Cognite, Jelly.ai, Klaviyo, Tailscale and Trifacta. Ping is also active in cybersecurity as an investor at Code42, Illumio, Lookout, Snyk, Sysdig and Tenable Network Security (NASDAQ). He was behind numerous past investments with notable exits, including Arista (NASDAQ), Blue Jeans (acquired by Verizon), Cloudera (NYSE), and much more.

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